In oposite to Help Desk, ITIL gives the Service Desk a wide responsibility.
Does anyone actually implemented Service Desk doing anything else than IM?
I can imagine Service Desk responsible for providing input for Configuration and Change Management, but I have no idea what the SS book author meant by ability to provide an interface for software licenses or ITSCM.
Any suggestions? Examples? Real life stories?_________________Krzysztof (Chris) Baczkiewicz
IT Standards Support
Eracent

1) Request for Service
- Handles calls from user requesting Desktop, Notebook etc... SD creates a Request and forwards it to the concerend manager for approval and its routed to the Purchase Department. The TS creates an IMAC to implement the newly aquired item.

"It not only handles incidents, Problems and questions, but also provides an interface for other activities such as customer Change requests, maintenance contracts, software licences, Service Level Management, Configuration Management, Availability Management, Financial Management for IT Services, and IT Service Continuity Management."

means actually that the Service Desk just handles the user's and customer's calls and escalates them.

Am I missing something?_________________Krzysztof (Chris) Baczkiewicz
IT Standards Support
Eracent

Since the Service Desk usually represents some of the lowest cost labor with the least experience in an enterprise, what you can do with it is rather limited. Nonetheless, there are many different productive things that can be done if your Service Desk has spare cycles:

1) Imrove data (Inventories, Lists, CMDB relationships, Documentation, Knowledge, etc.)
2) Identify things that need to improve to improve situations for your clients, themselves, and the IT organization as a whole. They can then document the requirements for such improvements. This effort can fall into the Problem Management space.
3) Proactively test and monitor the availability of Services in such a way as to identify and address things that can cause Incidents, before they happen (proactive medicine vs. reactive medicine).
4) Work to identify and specify KPIs and KPMs that can help improve how they operate and IT operate, as well as those that help improve the clients' experience.
5) Proactively find ways to reduce the Service Desk's costs (reduction in labor, infrastructure, tools, facilities, etc.)

Anyhow, this far short of the many things that can be done but it should give you an idea of some of the things that can be done.

NOTE: #5 is very critical to understand. One very positive mandate that can be given to any IT organization, including the Service Desk, is to find ways to help eliminate itself. While we all understand that this will never really happen, a group striving to eliminate itself will always be working on ways to automate, improve, and reduce costs... constantly yielding very positive results. The business leaders will like this mandate very much, as most view IT as a non-core competency that acts as a burden to revenue generation and profit margins. Having such a vision or mandate will help align you with your business more effectively, since they would happily eliminate non-core competency IT if they could. What I love about this mandate is that only the most confident IT leadership will take it on and live by it... the kind of leadership I always love.

To my opinion there are quite several activities that can be included in the SD roles, that will also dictate the skills and knowledge those people would need to have.

from what I have seen and/or worked on so far:
* SD can be involved in problem management: regular reviews of the incident list as to identify problems , problem follow up and escalation
* SD can (and shoudl, IMHO) obviously handle all requests from customers (change request, service improvement requests, complaints,..)
* SD can also, by "delegation" of the change and release processes, implement standard changes (like creating a mailbox).
* SD can be in charge of producing or controling the production of the various reports used by the various processes